Good morning and welcome in today. Today we’re going to take a look at a passage of scripture but before we do that I wanted to tell you a little story.
When I was in the sixth grade I used to spend some time with a neighbor boy who lived a few houses down the road from where I grew up. We used to ride bike together play hide and seek in the woods with other friends.
One day when I went over to his house he was pulling a mini bike out of his garage. He fired it up and drove up and down the road a few times as I watched. It sure looked like a lot of fun and I wanted to try it because I’d never been on a mini bike before.
He pulled up next to me and I jumped on it to take it for a ride to the end of the road. It was a blast, and it really went fast. I was almost to the stop sign to turn around and come back home when my parents drove by in the opposite direction and saw me riding the neighbors mini bike. I was pretty worried cuz I thought I was going to get in trouble when I got home.
For a few moments I turned my head backwards to see if they had stopped but right at that moment the mini bike hit a big rock and popped a wheelie. I slid off the back seat of the Mini Bike and both knees hit the ground at about 20 miles per hour. The hard Gravel Road ripped through my jeans and tore the skin right off my knees. It ripped the skin so deep that to this day I have no sensation in my knee caps. They are numb to any feeling.
This event in my life reminds me of the Christian Life. Just like my knees are dead to any feeling, we want to deaden off the sinful desires in our lives caused by the human nature.
Romans 8:12-13
12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
Just like my knees, mortification means to deaden so that you don’t have any feeling or desire for those things in your life anymore. It’s also defined as to subdue or bring into subjection, as the bodily appetites by abstinence and to destroy the strength vitality or functioning of.
Abstain means to refrain deliberately and often with an effort of self-denial from an action or a practice. We need to be capable of doing this so that sin doesn’t get a hold of us.
Romans 6:12-14
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
Don’t let sin control your life but rather allow the Lord Jesus to rule your hearts and your minds.
When you deaden something it means that you don’t have any feeling.
For example, at a dentist if they’re going to extract one of your teeth they might give you a shot of novocaine to completely deaden the nerve endings so that you don’t feel anything.
Part of the christian life deals with deadening off the sinful desires of the human nature.
Romans 6:11
11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
How many of you have a flashlight at home? Have you ever noticed after months of use it slowly starts to lose its power as the batteries die? In the exact same way, sin needs to lose power in our lives and die off so that the light of righteousness can shine in our hearts each day.
When something is dead it means incapable of being stirred emotionally or intellectually, unresponsive and no longer having interest relevance or significance.
Col 3:5 “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:”
Mortification is to deaden off wrong desires and urges so that we can do what is right.
Instead of doing what’s wrong we focus on doing what’s right. Instead of doing evil we choose the good. Instead of hate, we choose to love. Instead of pleasing ourselves we choose to please God. Instead of lying we choose to speak the truth. Instead of fornication we choose to live in a faithful marriage. Instead of pride we choose humility.
Just like I have no feeling in my knees from the mini bike incident, we don’t want to have any feelings for the way that we used to live anymore but to turn away from the desires of the sinful nature.
Let’s think about those things for today and Lord willing we’ll talk some more tomorrow. Till then, bye-bye everybody.❤
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